Counting off your heartbeats
by Megageeko
Summary: Sometimes, nightmares bring out things that we can't keep buried, no matter how much we wished we could have.


I had the urge to write father&son angst, this was the result. Let me know what you think.

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"How close are we to Storybrooke?" Neal muttered to himself, checking the map for the hundredth time. "Not far..." But it seemed like they were taking an eternity. Neal glanced over at Gold for the third time that minute, frowning at the way his father looked. Skin pale and his hands shaking. The shaking had slowed from how it had been earlier, but rather than reassuring Neal it only made the feeling in his chest claw at him more and more. Gold didn't even have the energy to shake anymore...

He walked over to the weakened man, kneeling down next to him and setting a hand on Gold's forehead, wincing at how it burned under his touch. His father cracked his eyes open to look at him. "We're almost there," Neal said softly, slipping a hand to press his fingers to his father's neck, closing his eyes for a moment at the weak pulse beneath the touch.

Gold offered him a smile. "Bae," he said, voice barely above a whisper, before cutting off with a series of pained coughs. Neal flinched, his hands moving along his father's shoulders as Neal struggled to think of what to do with them.

"We're almost there," he said softly, brushing some of his father's hair back from where it had stuck to his face in sweat. "Just rest, okay?" He murmured, about to move back to the helm before his father's hands reached up to grab him.

Although, to call that 'grabbing' was being somewhat generous. The touch was light, barely noticeable, though it managed to make Neal abort the movement quite quickly and turn back to his father, eyes locking onto the man's face.

"Bae," Gold rasped, raising a shaking hand to brush against Neal's cheek, "I'm glad... That I found you."

"Stop that," Neal muttered, his hand twitching before reaching up to brush his fingertips over Gold's hand, "we're almost there, you're going to be fine."

Gold's lips pulled into a rueful smile. "Of course..." He murmured. "Perfectly fine. Wouldn't want... To let you down... Again..." His eyes slid closed, his chest rising and falling slowly. Neal startled and found himself catching Gold's hand as it fell from his cheek.

"C'mon, you," Neal said, patting the man's cheek, "stay with me, here," he tried to keep his voice light, but the waver he couldn't suppress weighed heavily on his tongue.

Gold's breath rasped painfully, so painfully that Neal had to suppress a wince at the sound of it. The man's eyelids twitched, but the strength to open his eyes had left him.

Neal looked to the helm, knowing that he should go back to it, get them to Storybrooke, but with the way Gold's breathing was getting quieter and quieter, he couldn't bring himself to leave his side.

Neal raised a hand to Gold's pale cheek, the man's breathing practically silent now. The too-pale skin was stretched across his bones, making it look as though death had swallowed him whole.

Neal frowned at the thought, eyes narrowing. "Hey," he said quietly, patting Gold's cheek. He felt something twist within him as Gold gave no reaction. He grabbed Gold's shoulders, gently shaking him. "C'mon, this isn't funny." Gold's head fell to the side, and Neal's heart jumped in panic. "Wake. Up," he grit out.

Gold's chest had stopped rising and falling with breath. Neal felt himself go numb. "No. No, you're not... We're so close, you're not allowed..." He shook Gold again. "Wake up!" He moved his hands to cup Gold's face for a moment before sliding to press fingers to his father's neck. "Papa, wake up," he pleaded, his voice sounding far too small to his own ears.

He kept his fingers pressed to his father's neck, certainly hard enough to bruise. He'd apologize later, once he'd found a heartbeat... It was... It had to be.

"Papa, this isn't funny. Wake up." Neal's eyes stung as he pleaded, waiting and watching as though his father would suddenly spring to life just because of Neal's words.

_"Wake up..."_

Neal jerked awake with a strangled cry in the back of his throat, the sheets were tangled around his legs and the pillow torn halfway down, clutched tightly in his hands.

He sat up sharply, looking around as his chest moved with his rapid breaths. The darkness filled up the bedroom, the only source of light was the moon streaming in through the window.

Where was he? When did...

Neal rested his forehead in his hands. He was in Storybrooke. They had gotten there, and his father had healed. He was fine. He was? Yes, of course.

It was just a bad dream.

But it hadn't felt that way. He'd seen his father die, felt his heartbeat stop under his fingertips.

Neal swiped a hand across his eyes, frowning as his fingers came back damp. He rubbed at his eyes a few moments longer before sitting back.

It was just a nightmare, but nightmares didn't feel that real.

Unbidden, a thought came to him that perhaps it hadn't been a bad dream. He tried to push the thought away, but it had taken root. It swirled in his head, taunting him with the idea that perhaps his father had in fact died, that him surviving was only as vivid a dream as the nightmare had been.

He looked to the door, breathing slowly. It would be easy, he supposed, to walk down the hall and... Just a quick check, remind himself of what reality was.

He'd untangled the sheets from around his legs before he realized how utterly ridiculous he was being. He pinched the bridge of his nose, rolling over so that his back was facing the door. His father was fine, so Neal was just going to go back to sleep and in the morning he would find his father in the kitchen making breakfast.

Right. Yeah. That was how this would go.

Neal wasn't certain how long he remained in bed like that, but he knew it couldn't have been more than ten minutes (if that) before he was getting to his feet and stepping slowly to the door.

He just had to go to his father's room, see that he was not, in fact, dead, and then he could go back to sleep and put this whole thing behind him.

His father's room was two rooms down the hall, in theory not that far to walk, but at night it seemed that every noise he made had become a gunshot, and he had to move slowly to keep from making enough noise to wake his father up.

The door opened easily enough, unlocked and well-oiled so Neal didn't have to worry about it waking his father so long as he opened it slowly.

His father's room was even darker than Neal's had been, not having the benefit of the moon shining directly into the window, but as Neal's eyes adjusted to the darkness he could make out the silhouette of his father on the bed.

Neal took a slow step toward the bed, letting out a relieved breath once he saw the steady rise and fall of his father's chest. He settled his weight on the floor, eyes snapping wide open as the wood creaked beneath his feet.

The man startled awake at the noise, giving a growl and reaching over to grab at his cane. Neal silently cursed before speaking quickly, "it's me! It's me."

"Bae?" Gold asked, reaching over to turn on his bedside lamp. Neal once again cursed himself, both for being compelled to the room by the nightmare, like some scared little boy, and for having woken his father, thus revealing himself.

He tried to play it off. "Go back to sleep, it's n-nothing." He closed his eyes as his voice wavered, knowing that any credibility he might have had with the denial went right out the window. "Forget it." He shook his head, trying to move out of the room.

"Baelfire," his father said, shifting and sitting up straighter. "What's bothering you, son?" His words were just barely slurred, betraying that some sleep still held to him.

"Nothing." Neal shook his head.

"It can't be 'nothing' if you came here-"

"-Just go back to sleep. I'm _fine_." Neal tried again, taking a half-hearted step toward the door.

"I'm not going back to sleep until you tell me what's bothering you!" Gold snapped before taking a deep breath to calm himself.

"No." Neal shook his head firmly. "I won't tell you."

"And why not."

"Because it's stupid!" Neal finally snapped out, closing his eyes. "Because I know that it's stupid, and I don't know why I-" he cut off, slowly breathing in and out.

His father didn't say anything, and Neal was grateful for that. Finally, he spoke.

"I... I had a bad dream." He gave a broken laugh. "See? It sounds even more ridiculous when I say it out loud."

"Bae-"

"And it's not like I can't handle nightmares, I've been doing it for years," Neal continued on, not allowing his father a chance for input.

"Bae," his father said after a minute of silence. Neal looked up, and his father motioned to the bed next to himself.

Neal shook his head, trying to remind himself that he could handle this. He had come, he had put his mind at ease. His father was there, he was alive...

"Baelfire," his father said again, voice soft, "come here." Neal found himself sitting on the edge of the bed before he really even knew that he was moving. He set a hand on Neal's arm. "What was your nightmare about?"

Neal shook his head, stubborn even as exhaustion was setting in on him, relief to see that it had been only a nightmare was muted in the face of having to admit what had been strong enough to drive him to his father's room.

His father's other hand came, resting against his cheek. Neal flinched, but the hand didn't move away, instead tilting Neal's head to face him. Neal watched his father's lips tighten once he got a good look at Neal, and found himself wondering what sort of sight he made.

His father's thumb dragged across his cheek, Neal closed his eyes and leaned into the touch slightly. It might have been exhaustion, it might have been the dream, or it might have been some combination of both, but in that moment Neal wanted nothing more than to allow himself to fall into his father's touch.

He sighed, his eyes cracking open once more. The spell was broken, and once again Neal felt a fire curling within him at the thought that he had come in here just because of a dream. He was a grown man. He was stronger than needing to run to his father just because he'd had a nightmare that... That his father had...

"Bae," his father said, drawing him back to the present. Neal looked sharply to his father, who cupped his face. "What has you this upset?" The man's voice wavered with the next words, "please tell me. I can't help fix it if you won't tell me."

And that was just it, wasn't it? For all that there was that was healing between them, the divide remained and pushed Neal away from his father. For all that Rumpelstiltskin tried, Neal forced himself away whenever a memory of the Dark One resurfaced.

"Baelfire..." His father said quietly, watching him. Slowly, his father's face cracked. The change was subtle, but it made Neal's chest ache. "_Neal_," his father said, the word sounding like it burned him to say, "please."

Neal shook his head. "Don't- don't call me..." He looked away, breathing slowly as he tried to keep control of this situation that had long-since left his control. "Don't call me Neal." He shook his head again, because it just didn't feel right for his father to use that name.

Maybe that was what he needed, the final force that broke down the wall within him, but Neal could never be certain. Slowly, he began to tell everything that had happened in his dream. His father's hands fell from his face to rest on his upper-arms while he spoke. Neal's voice stayed steady up until he reached the part where his father had faded away in front of him.

"... And I kept, kept checking for a heartbeat..." Neal shook his head. "We didn't get to Storybrooke and you..." His breathing was faster than it should have been, his hands shaking. "You were dead."

His father's hand slid down to his own, thumb rubbing over the skin across his knuckles, offering a comfort that Neal's brain barely registered. Now he was shaking, mind caught up in the nightmare that he had tried to repress, long-forgotten fears washing over him and consuming him.

"You were dead, papa," he murmured, barely aware of his own words. He didn't see the way his father's lips drew into a tight frown, but he felt his father grab his hand. Before he could even think to ask, his fingers were pressed to his father's neck.

A moment later, he felt it. His father's heartbeat thrummed beneath his fingers, drawing a breath from Neal's lungs as he latched onto that single detail.

"I'm right here, Baelfire," his papa said quietly, "and I'm not going anywhere." His heartbeat remained steady beneath Neal's touch, and he slowly drew Neal closer to him.

"Papa," Neal said quietly, allowing himself to be maneuvered closer to the older man. After a moment, Neal allowed his head to fall onto his papa's shoulder as he listened to the heartbeat beneath his ear.

"I have you, Bae." The bedside lamp turned off, and his papa's arms wrapped tightly around him. "I have you..."

Neal closed his eyes, his breathing evening out. Exhaustion ran through his body, and though he stopped shaking he only clung tighter to his papa, head pressed tightly against his chest while Neal listened to his heartbeat.

In the morning, they would talk. Neal knew that there would be no getting around that. But for the moment, Neal knew that he could just allow himself to feel reassured and safe and just let everything that he had repressed for hundreds of years come back to him.

He fell asleep with his father's heartbeat pounding in his ear.


End file.
